Qin’s 57.98 Set the Stage for Pan’s 45.92 to Win Gold (Day 9 – Men’s Medley Relay Analysis)

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MEN’S 4×100 MEDLEY RELAY – Finals

• World Record: 3:26.78 – USA (2021)
• Olympic Record: 3:26.78 – USA (2021)
• 2021 Winning Time: 3:26.78 – USA
• 2021 Time to Win Bronze: 3:29.17

Podium

1. China (Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Sun Jiajun, Pan Zhanle)- 3:27.46
2. USA (Ryan Murphy, Nic Fink, Caeleb Dressel, Hunter Armstrong) – 3:28.01
3. France (Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Leon Machand, Maxime Grousset, Florent Manaudou)- 3:28.38
4. Great Britain (Oliver Morgan, Adam Peaty, Duncan Scott, Matthew Richards)- 3:29.60
5. Canada (Blake Tierney, Finlay Knox, Ilya Kharun, Josh Liendo)- 3:31.27
6. Australia (Isaac Cooper, Joshua Yong, Matthew Temple, Kyle Chalmers)- 3:31.86
7. Germany (Ole Braunschweig, Melvin Imoudu, Luca Armbruster) – 3:32.46
8. Netherlands (Kai van Westering, Caspar Corbeau, Nyls Korstanje, Josha Salchow) – 3:32.52

Backstroke Leg

In the rubber match between China’s Xu Jiayu and the USA’s Ryan Murphy, it was the Chinese swimmer who came out on top. Murphy left at the 50, 25.18 to 25.30, but the 100-back silver medalist, Xu, stormed back to touch his American riva 52.37 to 52.44.

France’s Ndoye-Brouad reliably kept the French in the medal hunt after having performed near his best, splitting 52.60, just off his 52.48 from the mixed medley relays. After Oliver Morgan’s 52..83, it was quite a far jump back to the other four teams as Blake Tierney‘s 53.75 was 5th, which isn’t all that surprising as the four fastest legs were all finalists in the 100 whereas Tierney was just 16th in the semis at 53.71.

Breaststroke Leg

After a rather sleepy 100 breaststroke that saw no male swimmer break 59.00 in the individual final, the relay splits were more exciting. That sentence may seem familiar as it is the exact one that was used in the Mixed Medley splits article, and it still holds true. After missing out on the medals in the 100, Qin Haiyang split his second sub-58 split in as many days, recording a mark of 57.98. While it was slightly off the 57.82 he managed to produce on the mixed medley, it was more than enough to continue to build the lead he had on the Americans and French

The Olympic co-silver medalists, American Nic Fink and Britain’s Adam Peaty tied in the final with a mark of 59.05, and while each split faster than that, they did so by drastically different margins. While Fink, who yesterday was 58.29, was only able to conjure up a 58.97 this evening, losing ground to Qin, Leon Marchand (58.62), and Peaty, whose 58.16 propelled the Brits from 4th into second.

Similar to the backstroke, these four teams separated themselves from the pack and only compounded their front-runner status, as the next fastest split belonged to Australia’s Josh Young, who was 59.26

Butterfly Leg

At the halfway point, China led the French by .87 and the Americans by 1.06. The Brits were technically in 2nd, .64 back, but their flyer, Duncan Scott, was just 51.61 in the mixed medley and wasn’t expected to be able to maintain such a position against the likes of Caeleb Dressel and Maxime Grousset.

The pair took out the first 50 fast, with Grousset starting with a blistering 22.36 and Dressel at 22.82. Grousset would come back to earth (and to Dressel) on the backhalf, ultimately splitting 49.57 to the American’s 49.41 and taking over the top two spots from China and Great Britain.

China failed to advance a butterflier to the semifinals of the individual event and struggled in this leg with Sun Jiajun, posting the 2nd slowest split of 51.19 and going from a lead of nearly a second to trailing the French by approximately three quarters of a second.

Freestyle Leg

Such a deficit would be a death knell normally to a relay, and while Pan Zhanle, the World record holder in the event, could make up the difference, it was going to be close. Would he be near his record of 46.40, or would he be nearer his 46.9 relay splits from earlier in the week?

His first 50 answered the question easily as he was 21.57 to the feet and had made up nearly the whole deficit. Florent Manaudou, the bronze medalist in the 50, and Hunter Armstrong, the fastest American at the meet, thanks to his 46.75, were just 22.05 and 22.32 and were in trouble as Pan opened up a lead on the two giants. Closing in 24.35, Pan would ultimately split 45.92, not only passing the great Jason Lezak as the fastest ever but also becoming the first under the 46.00 barrier.

While Armstrong was unable to repeat his sub-46 performance, the American posted the second-fastest split of 47.19, albeit more than a second behind Pan to secure the silver medal for the Americans. While Manaudou had the second-fastest first 50 (22.05), he started to lag on the last lap and ranked 6th with his split of 47.59, but he was still fast enough to be more than a full second clear of Great Britain and to win his second bronze of the meet.